According to Gateway Pundit, waterboarding does work after all:
According to a former intelligence agent, waterboarding of terrorist Abu Zubaydah got him to talk in less than 35 seconds. The technique, which critics say is torture, probably disrupted “dozens” of planned al-Qaida attacks and saved hundreds and thousands of lives. The CIA also confirmed that waterboarding 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed led to information that prevented a similar attack on Los Angeles.
…The CIA confirmed that waterboarding of 9/11 mastermind Led to Info that aborted 9/11-style attack on Los Angeles.
The details on the prevention of that Los Angeles attack are provided by CNS News. (H/T Hot Air)
The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of “enhanced techniques” of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) — including the use of waterboarding — caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles.
Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, “Soon, you will know.”
According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack — which KSM called the “Second Wave”– planned “ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”
Hot Air fills in some more of the details:
…the [CIA] remains tenacious in insisting that waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Abu Zubaydah saved American lives. CNS News reports that the CIA stands by its 2005 memo describing how those interrogations stopped another 9/11-scale attack:
KSM initially resisted all other interrogation procedures, right up to the waterboard. He insisted that Americans did not have the necessary resolve to get information out of him, and that we would only know about the next plot when it killed hundreds, if not thousands again. Only after the waterboard did KSM cough up the information on the “second wave” attacks, and the CIA and other national-security agencies stopped it.
But nevermind the good results of counter-terrorism programs and policies. Obama needs to appease the special interest groups who elected him! How will he do that?
The left-wing BBC reports that Obama may prosecute the authors of the counter-terrorism policies: (H/T Gateway Pundit)
US President Barack Obama has left open the possibility of prosecuting officials who wrote CIA memos allowing harsh interrogation methods.
It would be up to the attorney general whether to prosecute, Mr Obama said.
The memos detailed the range of techniques the CIA could use for questioning terror suspects.
Mr Obama had said he would not use anti-torture laws to prosecute CIA personnel who relied in good faith on legal opinions issued after 9/11.
The BBC’s James Coomarasamy in Washington says the president’s comments marked a change of tone amid growing pressure from the Democratic Party not to rule out potential prosecutions.
Well, prosecuting counter-terrorism experts is one thing, but that may not be enough to appease Michael Moore and the rest of the high school dropouts in Hollywood.
Gateway Pundit reports that Obama won’t rule out prosecuting George W. Bush either, because protected America too much:
Video here:
Gateway Pundit reported a few days ago that Dick Cheney, a serious statesman, has asked the Obama regime to declassify the details of the attacks that were stopped by waterboarding, but so far Obama has declined to do so. I guess he doesn’t want the American people to know the realities of national security decision-making in the 21st century.
Should we really have elected an ACORN lawyer who is tougher on counter-terrorists than on actual terrorists? Remember these things when the 2010 elections come around.
UPDATE: More about Obama’s defense spending cuts, including cuts of missile defense programs, is here. This post also talks about his appeasement of aggressors such as North Korea and Iran as they go nuclear.
UPDATE: A total of THREE terrorists were waterboarded during the time the policy was in place.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
You have asked whether atheists and agnostics believe in moral absolutes. I think there are some people who may not be religious but who believe that not torturing is a moral absolute.
I just listened to Jonathan Turley
who takes the view that it does not matter whether waterboarding reveals intelligence that could save lives because waterboarding is inherently immoral. I don’t know about Turley’s religious beliefs, but I see his view of U.S. law as absolutist, even though the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions make no claim to be divine wisdom.
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Thanks for this insightful comment. You are right, many atheists do (admirably) believe in moral absolutes.
But I want to know is: what is the ontology of moral absolutes? Where do they fit in with a materialistic worldview? If there are non-material, what is their source or grounding?
Theists like me believe that the moral absolutes are grounded in God’s own unchanging moral nature. They cannot be other than they are, yet they do not exist outside God.
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Your moral views cannot be that absolute and grounded in God if you believe the same things that Stalin and PolPot (where waterboarding came from) do, i.e., torture is an effective means of acquiring information. I reasonably doubt Jesus would share your views. He willing went to die on the cross for you beliefs…
I also see that you did not provide any proof that waterboarding saved lives. It is a commonly known fact that torture doesn’t produce anything credible (a great article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301303.html – I would link to the peer reviewed journals, but you need a subscription). Cheney and Rove were vehemently opposed releasing any data when they were in power; asked time and time again they would not comment on anything, now they want to release everything? Wouldn’t the time to defend your views be when you’re actively engaging in them?
So let me ask you this – if nothing happened, then how can you claim you know why it didn’t happen when we have no credible data on what was allegedly going to happen? Add on top of that, we know one indisputable truth: torture produces incorrect data. So how can we trust that anything that was confessed for the only reason of stopping pain and death to be true? I can claim that my time in the service is what stopped any subsequent 9/11’s, but how do I prove it…by the fact that nothing did happen?
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The waterboarding of KSM prevented a 9/11 style attack on Los Angeles.
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No offense intended Wintery Knight, but restating (verbatim) your position, does not constitute a countering of the points brought up by Jerry, which are valid points. Not points which seal the deal against or for your opinion, but they are intriguing to contemplate, yes? What evidence has been provided for prevention of a subsequent 9/11 attack. “CIA says” is not good enough in my book as convincing evidence. Show me credible evidence and I will accept it. Do I suspect that the CIA and other groups did stop other terrorist plots. Definitely. Do I think the evidence gathered from waterboarding was the only, or the key evidence to act against any of those plots, and therefore as even a shred of hope of my supporting in a “ends justify the means” argument.
Having been in the military, in places where I felt safe that if captured I would be treated according to the Geneva conventions, and in places where I KNEW I would not be treated accordingly, I come down pretty strongly against a) the Bush administration classification of the combatants captured in Afghanistan, b) the use of “enhanced” torture for any reason.
There are some moral lines we must not cross. EVER.
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